So far Im really enjoying the server! Im getting a bit of cash flow and have a small house. Im to the point where Im going to roll a pvp char.

First off I dont know how to pvp at all. I am searching around for dexxer pvp builds and one that caught my eye was a Med Dexxer. From what I have read dexxers need good gear to compete. I will not be running with good gear in the beginning because as I said I dont know how to pvp and will just lose it. Most of the posts I have found on Med dexxers are pretty old so I was curious to see if they are still good for pvp. I like that they have magery for utility, defensive spells, cross healing and are hard to kill from what I have read.

Here is the build I was looking at.

-100 mace-100 tactics-100 anat-100 heal-100 magery-100 resist-100 med

One big problem I see is when you disarm to cast you have no wrestle so you will get interrupted.

Is a dexxer in general a bad idea if I dont know what Im doing? If so Ill just roll the standard tank mage.

It’s really not an elite build. The wrestling is a major component. When you stop to cast it’s a free hally hit with no armor or a ching ching of a kryss or katana. A well stocked tank mage/pure dexer has too many advantages to make it pvp viable. Plus if you do find people to pvp now they have and endless array of ghouls touch or lightning weapons invis/tele/reflect jewelry that you will never obtain because the ill conceived loot changes making farming not even fun anymore and giving new aspiring players a huge disadvantage in pvp. Really to make a difference they needed to wipe the affected items from the game entirely.

Otherwise, to be helpful, I would suggest that you concentrate on 'strengths' and 'synergies', according to the playstyle associated with the character design. Myself, being a rather cheap fellow, I'd also keep a keen eye on cost-to-benefit ratios.

So, I might as well just say it, "roll-up a pure dexxer": particularly since you're just starting to learn, it's an economical and painless (to train-up) template and yet will still serve as a perfectly-adequate 'learning platform'. As a beginner, you are bound to make a number of mistakes, and die a lot; dying a lot with a noob mage (of any template) will cost you a lot of gold in lost reagents, while dying a lot with a pure dexxer will cost you (if they are looted) bandages and, maybe, some cheap armor (although I can't see an opponent, even a PKer, "deigning" to loot your garbage armor). Additionally, the mage demands a lot of 'front-loaded' investment in character-development, time-wise and gold-wise; a pure dexxer will be cheap and easy and fast to skill/stat-train.

Of course, you have to understand what it is you will want to achieve: a dexxer defeats a hally-mage with raw-sustained-dps and the infliction of spell-interrupts; the dexxer forces the hally-mage to run out of healing potions and mana (because constant interrupts force the mage to red-line his mana-pool because he can only reliably heal himself with 1st-Circle Heal); a pure mace-dexxer will also be attempting to undermine the opponent's hally-cycling, by dummying the opponent's stamina and (hopefully) throwing off that player's ability to properly time his cycling; a fencer/swordsman might add the additional fun of a poisoned weapon.

It is important to understand that how a dexxer kills a hally-mage is also how the dexxer stays alive: don't heal-with-bandage after the EBolt; instead, interrupt the EBolt. Cheap armor will help the dexxer absorb weapon damage, and Healing potions should be enough to keep you from dying (that is, once the player has become skilled enough).

I make it sound simple and, so far a principles are concerned, it is. Haha, however, I never said it would be 'easy': this playstyle demands that the dexxer remains, always, entirely on top of and 'all over' the opponent; the hally-mage is a front-loaded (OHKO-style) killer, while the dexxer can only kill by first exhausting his opponent of mana, while still 'staying ahead' in terms of damage suffered, and then forcing the point home. If the dexxer permits himself to be hit by an EBolt that should have been interrupted, or permits the hally-mage to cast an uninterrupted Greater Heal, or even to Meditate for 10 seconds, that failure might be fatal.

Regarding "learning how to PvP", I think that a pure dexxer would be the best build, if also, perhaps, the most-frustrating: any dexxer player who can competently 'go toe-to-toe' with a competent hally-mage must be considered a capable duelist; if you have the patience to embrace the learning curve, go for it!

Now, as to template design, I'd suggest a "PvP-variant" of a template I've devised, and posted on one of my Guild pages (you have to be logged-in to the Forums to view): from Other Professions, Master-at-Arms.

Remove Hiding & Tracking and 10 points from either Magery or Resist (the dexxer wants to achieve constantly-sustained interrupts; yes?; so, how much Resist do you need?), in order to GM Healing.

This template is not, at all, a 'beginner' template but can still serve as one: the beginner will fight defensively with (poisoned; from a vendor?) katana and shield, and offensively with quarterstaff, and simply do his best to stay alive.

From the keyboard of a skilled player, the Master-at-Arms will run with 1 halberd (dexxers can hally-cycle, also), 1 or 2 DP'd katanas, 1 "clean" katana (or broadsword; PM and I'll explain), 1 quarterstaff, 1 or 2 charged gnarled staves, 1 or 2 charged wands, a shield, and an array of GExplosion, GHealing, GCure, & GRefresh potions; 1 or 2, each, scrolls of Recall, Greater Heal, and Magic Reflection would be prudent additions. Um, and a lot of Razor dress macros …

I hope to have stimulated your imagination. If you have questions, post here or PM me.

I really like the Master at Arms build you posted and how it will work with good game play. I dont know the in and outs of the build but it seems like the hally would be for a big hit then swap weapons to poison then to quarter staff for stam drains, interrupts and damage. Then you have utility with charged staffs and what not. I could be completely wrong! From a lot of the vids I see a hally mage runs in with a huge hally hit and a pre casted spell. With this build you could run in with a hally hit and swap weapons. Im interested to know more about the game play with this build.

How useful is parry? You cant use pots and how much do you really use the shield? Is parry worth the 100 points? Dont get me wrong I really love the idea of parry! I like playing defensive which is why I was asking about med dexxer. What are some examples of where parry really shines to be worth the 100 points.

I would for sure drop tracking and hiding for an extra 30 points. Also can you survive a dump with low resists? I was thinking more of when a target swap is called and 3 mages are casting on you.

And that build would be really easy to make with little to no cost. I did start on a hally mage. Hes gm everything except magery, resist and med and those cost alot to gm!

I'm pleased that I seem to have inspired enthusiasm, and I'm glad to hear that you're thinking forward.

However, you'll need to master the very basics before you can aspire to become too ambitious: at the outset, "the very basics" includes, only, "how to not die".

I'm not kidding: almost any template "is capable of PvPing-enough to avoid dying" (in some cases this might require some very elite gear ...), but that's only because the player knows how to pull that off. Until you learn, you'll just be another frustrated "OOOooooOOO"er, regardless of template, and irrespective of gear.

I will remark a little on the "ins and outs" of the build, since you ask, and because I'll remark upon a couple of distinctions that will very-early-on become apparent.

(Prepare to be a little disappointed) The Master-at-Arms is a pure dexxer, and a dexxer really shines only in extremely-close-quarters (because the dexxer has to be on top of and all over the opponent, all the time): dismounted, boxed-in in an arena, a good dexxer can make a good hally-mage really unhappy; mounted, in the open field, the reverse is true, and by an order of magnitude. Get yourself a Frenzied Ostard, but only after you learn how to fight.

The dexxer also differs from the hally-mage in group combat: assuming even-odds, "group dexxers" must still seek 1-on-1, while hally-mages will always want to kite, and then sync-dump on a single target: if two-of-your-three permit two-of-their-three to sync-dump on one-of-your-three, one of yours dies (and that's probably the end of the contest because, 2 v. 3, they'll be able to kite, and "3-Card Monte", your survivors). You asked about Resist in such an instance: irrelevant, as the sync-dump is performed precisely in order to defeat GM Resist …

Some other remarks,

You'll rarely be able to cross-heal with bandages: sure, the timer is only 5 seconds but you must remain in adjacent tiles (difficult if you're both supposed to be all-over your respective opponents ...); 3rd-Circle Poison, or 5th-Circle Poison Field, will convert you Heal-bandages into Cure-bandages.

No Wrestling v. you want to use a potion or you want to cast a spell: potions can't be interrupted, nor can any spell you can reliably cast; against a hally-mage, simply time this action just after a hally-swing, when he absolutely can not hit you again.

Of what value is GM Parry: lots or nothing, really; deflecting 8 hp off of 50% of hally-hits seems trivial on a per-single-hit basis, excepting only that it might keep you from dying, but do remember that you are probably in for a long, protracted fight … those deflections might likely add-up and, certainly, you'll always be happy of whatever means might help you survive until your next bandage takes effect; want to change-it-up (I don't know yet if you've given me a novel template idea ...), I'd recommend [EDIT: I screwed this up, not remembering the original skill distribution: this variant would have 0 Parry, 100 Anatomy, 100 Healing, 75 Magery, 50 Meditation, 75 Resist] +50 (so, 75) Magery, and 50 Meditation, and change stats to S100/D75/I50, and make sure you keep your armor light; However, with no Wrestling, you likely can not afford to be too ambitious with the spells you cast …

Recommendations,

Look up "How to not die" and find two very-good posts presented by MatronDeWinter, and "Tips & Tricks" to find a number of good posts by Mikel123: absorb.

Try to find "nice" sparring buddies to help you learn the ropes: off the top of my head, I'd recommend Grofus and tiredat52; I know either only by reputation, and I've no idea if either would consent, but I consider both to be solid and stand-up fellows.

GM Poisoning is a waste of skill points: even at GM, Deadly Poison will fail too often to be practical for re-poisoning during a fight, so only Greater Poison would be used for this; 80 Poisoning would be enough for that (and to avoid poisoning-self on the occasional failure).

Lack of synergy: GM Magery, 0 Med, 50 Int; simply-put, way too much Magery for a modest mana-pool that can not be sustained.

I remain nonplussed that so many players must not understand how Meditation works here: in combat, even for a hally-mage, 99% of mana-regeneration will be relying upon the passive Meditation rate; 25Int + 0 Med, 1 per almost-7 seconds; 50 Int + 0 Med, 1 per 5ish seconds; 50 Int + 50 Med, 1 per 2 seconds; 100 Int + 100 Med, 1 per 1 second.

So, back to Chicanery's template, drop Magery to 75 and whatever else to whatever to include 50 Meditation: you will have a poisoning (anti) Paladin, or a poisoning Ranger, depending on your role-playing "take".

Alternatively, for a "cheap and nasty PvP anti-dexxer-dexxer", consider The Adept of the Library of Scars: for pure PvP, if desired, drop Hiding & Tracking to GM Resist and raise Magery to 50; guaranteed pain-in-the-ass, less-so to a hally-mage than to a pure dexxer but, well, still rather cheap and annoying …

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